


A Different Kind of Gold

by shini_amaryllis



Category: The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Action/Adventure, Character Death (at one point), F/M, Family, Halfbreeds, Prissy Elves, Ri Brothers sister, Romance, Stubborn Dwarves, Traveling, dwelf, everything in between
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 23:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3186686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shini_amaryllis/pseuds/shini_amaryllis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raina Greenwood was borne of two races, and thus she didn't truly have a home, though this was not as off-putting as it seemed, allowing the dwelf to travel as far as she desired, only being weary of Thorin Oakenshield who could not have made it plainer how little he cared for her, but Raina would prove herself to be a warrior of great skill, even if it took her decades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mongrel of Two Races

**Author's Note:**

> This is a resubmission of my original KilixOC story that I pulled off this site some time ago, mostly because I was inspired by the H:BotFA. It's being lengthened from three thousand words to four thousand words just like Creator of Time was, because four thousand words is practically my minimum now. Also, just like in Creator of Time, I was planning to go into a bit more depth for Raina, because I feel like a skipped over a bit of her childhood that I should've explained more about.
> 
> The way I understand it, Elves come of age around fifty years, while Dwarves come of age around forty, or, at least, that's the assumption I'm going to be operating under, if its wrong, let me know, and I'll fix it.
> 
> Also: I will be showcasing just how difficult of a relationship Raina and her mother have, something I glossed over in the original one. Caladwen makes the mistake of trying to make her be more Elf than Dwarf, and it doesn't end too well…

Raina Ibûndottir was not disillusioned of what she was, even at a young age. She was not familiar with how her father, Ibûn son of Frár, came to find himself involved with her mother, Caladwen of Imladris, only that it pained her mother to speak of the relationship she had once had with her father, so she thought it best not to bring the matter to her attention.

Raina was a strange child, a mongrel born of two races that couldn't have been more different from each other: Dwarrow and Elven folk. Her hair was a dark molten gold, like the seams that ran through the mountains that the Dwarves were known to inhabit, and her eyes were pale and light like diamonds, and like her mother, her ears converged into a sharp point, rather unlike the rounded edges that Dwarves had. They were certainly strange features for their race, but her mother and father had loved her all the same, shielding her as best as they could from the eyes of others who viewed her looks to be…unnatural (and there was no denying that, but Raina didn't need to be aware of it).

Ibûn had claimed her beauty could not compare to all the riches of the earth and Raina had blushed and giggled, following her parents' examples and ignoring the looks thrown her way.

Raina remembered her father very well, even though he died when she was quite young. She remembered how his belly shook as he laughed, his laughter deep and echoing, she remembered how his red beard tickled her when he kissed her, and she remembered how his eyes would crinkle in the corners when he smiled. She remembered tracing the scars that rested tight on the skin over his knuckles. She remembered how he grunted with annoyance as he tried to spin Raina's thick strands into a braid that wasn't going to fall out within the next day.

One day he had been there, and the next he had gone.

He died rushing to the aid of King Thror in an effort to take back Moria, but it was all for naught, and it was in the same battle that her closest friends, Fili and Kili, lost their father as well. However, it was different for the two brothers, as they were the great-grandsons of Thror himself, and through their veins ran Durin's blood.

They were princes and Raina was just a bastard.

But status meant nothing without a throne and those Dwarves originally from Erebor, even the royal line, held no more power than common miners did. And this meant that Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, had no love for Raina, especially when she came to play with his nephews, for she was half of the race that had betrayed him and his family when the great dragon, Smaug, attacked Erebor.

"You cannot blame a child, Thorin," his sister, Dis, reproached him as he scowled into the distance, where a few Dwarrow children played a game of keep-away, and though very few approved of Raina given her heritage, children cared little of these problems. Playmates were playmates, and nothing would be able to persuade them of any different. "Raina Ibûndottir did not turn her back on Erebor."

"She is of the same race," Thorin remarked coolly as the golden-haired girl tripped only to get back up once more, stains appearing on her knees. "All Elves are the same."

Dis gave a soft almost imperceptible sigh at the stubbornness of their father that her brother had inherited. She, unlike her brother, knew of the differences between the different forests that held Elves, and Caladwen was of Rivendell, not Mirkwood, the forest from within Thranduil ruled, but her brother it would seem, chose not to differentiate. Perhaps it was simpler for him that way. It was easier to blame the whole rather than a single part.

But Dis could not bring herself to hate a child as she watched Raina race through the grass, laughing as she caught Kili's sleeve.

"Run!" she cried, pushing Fili away as her dark-haired son ran after his brother and friend, his laughter heard even from where Dis stood, and the dark-haired Dwarrow woman allowed herself a small smile. Children were a wonder, so much filled with innocence and joy.

Raina ducked under one of her older brothers, little Ori, her movements graceful whereas his were bumbling and uneven, no doubt owing to the Elven blood that coursed through her veins.

Children would be children until they could be children no longer, and Dis wasn't about to rush that along, even if it wasn't perhaps the wisest course of action. And she doubted young Raina would be with them much longer, if the shifty eyes of Caladwen were any sort of indicator.

There was nothing to keep the long-lived elf in Ered Luin as Ibûn's presence no longer tied her there since her lover's death. Caladwen was like a fish trying to live on land, and it simply wasn't possible, and her love for her daughter was great, so Dis didn't doubt that she would disappear with the young half-Dwarrow lass. She did however wonder if the child would wish to go when she had lived her whole life on a mountain only to be suddenly forced from it and into a forest. Somehow, she knew the answer would be that Raina would rather remain.

Raina fit in very well with the three Ri Brothers, her brothers, given that she was half of another race. But while each of Ibûn's sons did share a father, they had each come from different mothers, so it might not have felt all that different to them.

Ori and Raina were ever so fond of their books, becoming quickly enamored with the languages of Westron and Khuzdul (although Dis had heard the flowery words of Sindarin a few times), but Raina was also a very active child, fascinated by weapons and warriors. Dis felt pride swell inside her at the knowledge of a Dwarrow female that wouldn't contend to sitting on the sidelines, this was a girl that would be fighting on the frontlines with the men, if the opportunity ever arose.

Nori, who was already becoming well known as a thief had a soft spot for his youngest sibling and only sister, and since Dwarrow females were so few in number, he had taken to showing her a few defensive moves, how to pick locks and pick pockets, much to the chagrin of her eldest sibling, Dori, who thought she was better off far away from Nori's type. But Raina was a spirited child who seemed to be constantly up to something, whether it was good or bad, and Dis knew without a doubt that her two young sons wouldn't be far behind the pale-eyed girl who sang the old songs in Khuzdul no matter how many times her mother winced at the language.

* * *

Caladwen did not fumble with the ties of her and Raina's bags as Dwarves often did, elves movements were far more precise, but she was being deliberately slow, allowing her daughter as much freedom as she dared before she would go to her to tell her of the bad news.

She was also worried about the protection of her only child, as she had been since the day the golden-haired lass had been born; there was a shortage of people who did not wish ill of those considered mongrels.

So every so often she glanced up nervously as her young daughter played with Dis' equally young princes. Thorin had made it obvious his disgust towards her child, her innocent half-dwarf, half-elf child. Little Raina didn't understand the lost king's hatred towards her, but it had caused her to have an aversion to him, usually sticking close to her elder brothers' sides or Kili and Fili's. Her appearance was rather odd for a Dwarf, or even an Elf, but Ibûn had said she was a living representation of the riches that flowed beneath the earth, with great pride, but Ibûn was dead, and Caladwen was alone.

As alone as she had been before she had met Ibûn, only now there was a harsh sting in her heart from the loss of the Dwarf who had been the only man to ever claim her heart.

Caladwen expelled a soft sigh, thanking Eru that she had her daughter didn't have many personal items to begin with. It would make it easier to so at a faster pace on her beloved steed, and quicker to leave the mountain behind, something she dearly wished to accomplish.

"You're going to take away from us…aren't you?" Dori's voice drew her out of her deep thoughts and she glanced to the side and down (something an elf always seemed to have to do, given the difference in height between the two races). Of the three sons of her lover, Dori was the one who least looked like Ibûn, and Nori, the most, however, this did not make looking at Dori any easier.

She could read many emotions that flashed across the already-grey-haired Dwarf's (a trait from his mother, no doubt) face, even at the speed they disappeared; anger, sadness, resignation, regret, reluctance. And she knew why they were all present on his face. Anger that she would take Raina away, sadness that their sister would be taken away from them, resignation that he had no power to keep the golden-haired elfling in Ered Luin, regret that he couldn't convince Caladwen to remain, and reluctance to let Raina go.

The Ri brothers were among the few people dwarves that didn't treat Raina as if she was a curse upon the land. They loved their sister truly and deeply, and she had no doubt that they would try to stop her, or at least Nori and Ori would make an attempt, it seemed that Dori had already come to terms with her soon-to-be abrupt departure.

Finally, a sigh escaped her lips and she nodded her light-haired head in agreement to the boy's words. "Ered Luin is no place for a child of my bloodline. She will find no friends among your people, Dori," Caladwen said exhaustively, watching as Raina clapped her hands together with Kili and Fili mimed something with his hands, falling dramatically to the ground amid peals of laughter. It sounded like a lie once she said it out loud, as Ibûn's blood was strong in Raina, but she would never admit it.

"Will she among the elves?" Dori demanded, his eyes sparking with a sudden anger that was brought on by her dismissal of half of his half-sister's heritage, the Dwarfish half. "She's our sister!"

"And she is my  _daughter!"_  Caladwen snapped, her words as sharp as any blade. "She needs a healthy environment in which to thrive, and that cannot occur within the borders of Ered Luin. I cannot, I will not allow to continue living here, knowing that Thorin Durinson openly displays such animosity towards her.

Dori took a step back at her vehemence, despite knowing that she was indeed correct. "But—"

However, Caladwen was no longer listening as she pulled the last of her bags out of the door to tie them down to the horse before striding out the door towards her daughter, gripping the reigns tightly.

"Raina, darling?" she called out towards the golden-haired girl who was waving her hands as she spoke, pausing abruptly at the sound of her mother's voice. Her child smiled up at her with a bright grin that could outshine the sun, her attention shifting from the two Dwarrow princes before her who were now staring inquisitively up at the elf.

"Mama!" the little girl chirped happily. "Fili says he's going to learn to use swords soon! When are you going to teach me?"

Dwarrow folk were taught to survive at a young age, and it was something that Caladwen had tried to evade for so long, as she had clearly seen how much longing was present on Raina's face at the sight of weapons of any kind. It had always been that way, much to Caladwen's chagrin, even when Ibûn was alive, he had boasted that his daughter had a great eye, her attention always fastening on weapons of the highest caliber.

She grimaced slightly, though the expression vanished, too quick to be seen. Kili and Raina, being the younger of the three, missed the pain in her eyes, but Fili did not, and his bright blue orbs filled with confusion as he paused to look up upon the elf-woman that everyone was familiar with by now both as the mother of a mongrel (though his mother had forbade him against using that word as a description towards his friend, so it must have been a bit crude) and as the former lover of a Dwarf.

"I suspect you will soon, whether or not I agree," Caladwen admitted with a bit of reluctance, the second bit of her statement said so lowly that the children could not make it out. "However, Fili, Kili, I'm afraid I must steal my daughter away from you, as we will be leaving momentarily."

Raina was a smart girl, even if she did not entirely understand all that was occurring, that much was evident as her brow wrinkled in confusion.

"Leaving?" Raina asked curiously, standing up and brushing her hands against her sturdy pants –a nervous gesture that Caladwen would have recognized even if there was a substantial distance between them–, already stained from mud and grass from playing with her brothers and the two young princes. "Why? Where?"

Her mind was racing faster than the length of a plain a horse could cover at a dead sprint, but it was not out of fear, but excitement. Raina loved discovering new things, whether they were words, weapons, or even places she had never been to before.

"To Imladris," Caladwen agreed, smiling at the prospect of showing her home to her only child. She knew that Raina would love Imladris, once she got past how angry she would be at being forced from Ered Luin.

"Imladris," the word flowed carefully off Raina's tongue as she screwed up her face in concentration, attempting to recall just where she had heard the word from as she took her mother's hand, waving a boisterous goodbye to the two brown and blonde-haired lads.

Caladwen could faintly hear the voices of the Ri brothers in her periphery, no doubt having come across Dori who was understandably distraught at having to lose his youngest sibling to her mother. She could hear the concerned hue that had leaked into young Ori's voice as he comforted his eldest brother, not quite knowing what else to do.

Nori's voice was the one that drew the attention towards the Elf and her offspring. "Dori, what's she doing?"

"Is it Raina?" Ori asked in confusion, the young Dwarf not knowing what had upset Dori so greatly as he followed Nori's eyes. "What's going on?"

"We're going to be living there from now on," Caladwen continued, ignoring the young voices behind her as she lifted the girl into her arms.

Her words took about a second to register and then the half-dwarf child was fighting against her grip, outstretching her hands towards the nephews of Thorin. "No!" she cried, the pitch of her voice rising slowly but quite steadily that it caused five heads to whip towards her. "I wanna stay with Kili and Fili! And Ori and Nori and Dori!"

Kili, his brown eyes wide, stumbled towards her, his fingers outstretched towards his friend. "Ray!" he called out to her. "Don't go!"

But Caladwen had already mounted her steed in one swift movement, making it difficult for him to reach her, if not all together impossible, with Fili half a step behind his younger brother.

"Don't make me leave!" Raina sobbed, pushing against her mother's shoulder as Nori and Ori realized what was happening and rushed on short legs towards the horse Raina was situated on top of, but it was all for naught, with Caladwen was speeding away, her daughter wailing for her brothers and her dearest friends, but there was no going back.

Raina still struggled even when the image of Ered Luin passed beyond her vision, and Caladwen knew that if she were to stop for an even brief moment of rest, Raina would be rushing on stubby legs back in the direction of the mountain (though, she would not be getting very far with the great distance there was between them and the mountain, even when one took into account her rather unimpressive speed for a child her age and size).

And when Raina's limbs could no longer move, and her eyes were red, and her throat sore from the yells she had directed both towards her mother and towards all she had left behind, Raina reluctantly closed her eyes and allowed sleep to wash over her.

But for a very long time Raina would not fall asleep without seeing the sadness and the fear that dwelled within the eyes of each of the ones she held most dear, and it would be many days and nights before she saw them once more.

* * *

Raina did not speak for an entire month after she arrived in Imladris. She shied away from her mother's touch and she ignored her words, for Dwarrow folk were known for their incredibly long memory, and Raina had at least half that.

She  _hated_  the Elves.

She  _hated_  Imladris.

Or, at least, that was the lie she tried to convince herself of day after day, through an entire silent month.

But she was miserable, very miserable. She hadn't fit in at Ered Luin, but she had family there, brothers that loved her and friends she could play with, and then her mother had to drag her away to thrust her into an environment she wasn't suited for, surrounded by strangers who knew more about her than she ever wanted to know about them who couldn't have made it plainer to her that she was a bastard of two races that could find no place in the world.

Her mother had forced her into a pale dress of light quality that both did not suit her and made her eyes painfully bright, and the simple gold circlet on her forehead weighed her down, but Raina didn't look any less like a Dwarf than she had when she was living in Ered Luin.

Raina would've ripped the circlet from her head if her mother hadn't braided it into her hair. Raina pressed fists into her eyes, trying not to voice her aggravation (after a month of silence this was becoming a common practice) before removing them and stalking into the first room she could find in an effort to evade her mother.

Coincidentally, the room she happened to duck inside was one that contained books as far as the eye could see, and Raina's eyes could see far.

Unwillingly, a light had entered Raina's eyes as she moved forward to trace a few fingers lightly over a few spines of several books. The bindings for these books was much lighter than the ones that Raina had seen in Ered Luin which were built to last the ages and weather the many elements –much like their architecture, Raina would later realize.

She could make out the tongue of Westron over a few texts that lay about on a nearby desk, but she could also see the smooth lettering of Sindarin that her mother had given her to read more than once before. Elvish wasn't as simple as it seemed, and her mother's disappointment at how long it was taking her to better understand the language Caladwen would have preferred to speak over Westron only worsened how Raina felt.

She got Sindarin eventually, of course, but it took more effort than she was willing to admit, certainly more effort than Khuzdul, which had been remarkably simple to learn and even easier to speak.

Raina tugged a flimsy book loose from the shelf, thumbing through it in a pointless manner, glancing over the dark ink of the words and the light etchings of trees and wildlife before setting it down once more to gaze out into Imladris with an expression of restrained wonder.

She truly wished she could hate Imladris, that she could hate her mother, for that hatred, she knew, would soon pass and wash away like pebbles in a stream. For there was beauty here and things that grew, unhindered by rock or stone, rather unlike how things had been back at Ered Luin.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to live here after all.


	2. Warrior-Scholar of Imladris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concerning Raina's name: the way I see it, children are given their father's name along with their own, adding an 'ion' or an 'iel' based on whether or not the child is male or female. Raina can be known as Raina Ibûndottir by Dwarves, Raina Ibûniel by the Elves, or Raina Greenwood for the wood her first bow is carved from.

The first time Raina fell over the waterfall was a complete accident, but when she survived the fall –being a strong swimmer, as it ended in a deep pool– she was all for doing it a second time. This is not necessarily a good thing, especially to Caladwen.

Caladwen who was trying to keep her as far away from weapons as if was possible to be for a Dwelf, but Raina had finally figured out where the armory was located, and her plans were set in motion.

Raina crept quietly and carefully through Imladris, the morning's sunlight was basking the Last Homely House in a soft orange, and for a moment, Raina actually wished that she could paint to capture the image, but sadly that was not one of her talents.

Raina stepped silently through the door, making note of the Elven guards that she had just narrowly escaped from being seen by. There were a lot more weapons than she was anticipating, though this might have had something to do with the fact that many elves she saw were more armed with a bow and arrow than anything else. But within there were spears and blades of all sorts as well as bows, arrows, armor and shields.

It was irritating how tall the elves were compared to her, though she was only twelve now, so nearly everything appeared to be suited for much larger hands than the ones she currently possessed (however, they were not as large Dwarf hands). With luck, however, Raina managed to find a bow and a few arrows that suited a child of her size.

Raina looped the bow over her shoulders before tying the grey-fletched arrows together and binding them to the old quiver at her side that her mother had brought her from their home in Ered Luin, and then she raced out of the door before anyone could grab her to stop her.

There were more Elves around today than she was used to, and a number of men whom Raina knew to be the Dúnedain of the North. This might have had to have done with the return of Lord Elrond's twin sons, Elladan and Elrohir, but Raina knew not of this. She had not met the Lord Peredhel of Imladris, nor his three children (though she did know them to be both very old in spirit but not in face and very beautiful).

Raina ducked around willowy legs in her haste, moving as swiftly as she could towards the smaller waterfall and then flinging herself into it in a rather graceless manner that told of the parentage she bore.

" _I was not aware any of our kin had children within the last century_ ," a voice mused in Sindarin after she had gone, grey eyes staring after the blonde-haired half-breed. The voice belonged to one of Lord Elrond's sons, Elladan, the elder of the two.

" _The child is Raina Ibûniel,"_  his father responded in the same tongue,  _"daughter to Caladwen. She could be viewed as a Half-Elven by some."_

" _By some?"_  a second voice inquired.  _"Not all? Is she not half-Man?"_  Elrohir, Elladan's brother appeared by his twin's side, interested in the subject of the conversation. He was quite familiar with Caladwen, though she was several centuries younger than he and with a fondness towards exploration.

" _She is half-Dwarf,"_  Lord Elrond replied.

Both brothers' eyebrows arched to their brows and they shared an expression of surprise. The most common pairings of interspecies unions were that of Elves and Men, a line from which their own father was born of through Beren and Lúthien Tinúviel. A union of a Dwarf and an Elf was almost unheard of.

" _Then she is a rare creature indeed,"_  Elladan said, " _is she anything like Idhrenniel_?"

Idhrenniel was the only other Half-Dwarf, Half-Elf known to be in existence. She shared more with her father than her mother, her Elf-blood shining in her veins as it did in Raina. Idhrenniel had thick and dark hair that was now spun with silver and eyes like sapphires. She had the short stature of a Dwarf, though, and dwelt in the forest of Lórien, living peacefully with its kindred rulers, Galadriel and Celeborn.

Elladan and Elrohir had met the Dwelf, for lack of a better word to describe her, only once before, but they could recall the charm that she spun into her words and the steadiness that kept her bow straight. She may have had silver strewn through her hair, but her beauty had not yet diminished. They did not know for how much longer she would continue to live, she was, after all, the first of her kind, but they did know it would be a few centuries more at least.

" _I fear she may be more so_ ," Lord Elrond had to concede,  _"removing a bow and a number of arrows from the armory unseen as well as diving down a waterfall…she is quite a reckless child."_

Elladan and Elrohir blinked owlishly at their father for a moment as if trying to ascertain if that had indeed been what had happened –but they had seen a flash of colored feathers fletched to arrows as the child had run through the crowd– before laughter erupted from their lips, belling out and echoing loudly around them.

* * *

Raina surfaced quickly, a spout of water coming from her mouth as she emptied it of the water that had entered into her mouth on the way down. Once the water was gone from her mouth, she swam diligently towards the point where the pool of water met the bank and she pulled herself upright, walking out and onto land, her bare feet sinking into the water-logged earth before they met grass and she flopped down.

The quiver inside which her arrows were tied swung wildly at her hip and Raina pulled the beautifully crafted bow from where it had rested over her shoulders; deep down she felt a bit bad for stealing it, but then she pushed it aside, reminding herself of just how much her mother tried to keep her away from weapons that she was forced to steal them in order to learn their uses in battle.

"If you could pick a weapon to take into battle, my silver-eyed one, what would you pick?" her father had once asked her.

Raina had frowned intently, wanting to appear as though she was thinking as hard as she could.

"A bow," she decided without much deliberation. Swords and knives were too heavy for her as she currently was and she was likely to do more damage to herself than anyone else.

"And why a bow, Raina?" Ibûn hummed, to which she explained her reasoning.

He nodded approvingly. "But how, little star, are you going to pull the drawstring back?"

Raina had gazed at him, a bit flummoxed. "What d'you mean?" she asked in confusion. "Shouldn't I be able to?"

"Ah, you will, you will," Ibûn promised, "but first you must build up the strength of your arm, for without it you will be too weak to do so."

Ibûn had been in the process of teaching her when he had been killed, so Raina continued on without him. She could now draw the bowstring back, and she did so with great glee. Of course, actually having some skill with the bow was an entirely different matter.

Raina's pointed ears twitched at the sound of someone approaching and she dived behind the nearest tree she could find, leaving her newly acquired bow on the scattered arrows.

" _You need not fear me, Raina Ibûniel_ ," a musical voice proclaimed into the early morning.  _"I mean you no harm."_

Raina peeked her head around the edge if the tree's trunk to rest her eyes upon the Elf that had spoken.

She would not be lying if she said the she-Elf was the most beautiful of the race that she had seen since her arrival in Imladris, even more than her own mother. This female had locks that were so much darker than Raina's that they might have been everlasting night without stars, her eyes were so grey that they could have been storm clouds, and her fair cheeks shimmered with health.

The she-Elf smiled kindly at Raina from what she could barely see of her and crimson bloomed on Raina's cheeks as she ducked behind the tree once more.

"Y-You know my name?" Raina forced the words out, opting for Westron rather than Sindarin, for though she was progressing nicely with the language, she still stumbled a bit, and it would be best for her not to ruin the language in front of one who had undoubtedly been speaking it for centuries.

The thought of the age difference between her and anyone in Imladris made her feel quite small. Everyone she had come into contact with as of late was several centuries her senior and thus Raina was treated more as though she was a young child.

"All know your name, Raina Ibûniel," the Elf said with a smile that was soft and kind as she responded in a similar tongue, "and all are familiar with your face."

"Oh," Raina said, her eyes becoming downcast where she hid behind her tree and the musical voice called to her once more.

"Come, so that I might look upon you."

Raina murmured an ancient Dwarvish curse under her breath that she had heard her father utter on more than one occasion –often about his sons who were very spirited, Nori being the one that often got into trouble– but then she took a deep breath and stepped into the light.

Arwen Undómiel was renowned for her beauty and her likeness to Lúthien Tinúviel, and though she had seen glimpses of Raina Ibûniel, she only came to see just how unique her appearance was now, so very different than the Elves of Imladris and the child's fair-haired mother, Caladwen.

"Hello," Raina said quietly, digging a bare heel into the grass as she kept her eyes firmly away from Arwen's as though afraid of judgment in her eyes.

The child jumped wildly when Arwen knelt before her, tilting her chin upwards. She was amused when the chin jutted outwards slightly in defiance.

Arwen's eyes were a solid slate grey, but this child's outshone hers in that they appeared to be made of liquid starlight.

"You have beautiful eyes, Raina," Arwen said kindly and a pale flush spread across her cheeks.

"Thank you," Raina nearly mumbled, before admitting, "You are very beautiful."

"Thank you," Arwen said simply, repeating Raina's words. Her eyes twinkled in the light of the morning sun. "Do you know who I am, Raina?" she inquired of the half-Elf.

"No," Raina said honestly, her brow furrowing and displaying her confusion. Though, this should have come as no surprise, as she hardly knew anyone's name. She knew her mother, and the Elf-lord Lindir who had been kind to her since he had first laid eyes on her, he was the one who assisted her with her Sindarin when she was having a bit of difficulty with it. Raina tended to avoid most Elves, and she was so small that many didn't take notice of her.

"I am Arwen Undómiel," the Elf said and Raina temporarily froze.

Like all who lived in Imladris, Raina knew the names of Lord Elrond Peredhel's children. The first were his twin sons Elladan and Elrohir whom were known to ride with the Dúnedain, and his only daughter was known as Arwen Undómiel, Arwen of the Evenstar, as she was the Evenstar of her people.

"U-Uh, my apologies!" Raina managed to stutter out with difficulty, embarrassment coloring her cheeks a darker pink than they had previously born. The Elf before her certainly had the bearing of a lady, something Raina doubted she would ever be capable of.

Arwen laughed and it sounded as melodious as her voice was musical. "Fear not, Ibûniel, I did not expect you to recognize one you had never laid eyes on."

Raina chuckled in a nervous manner, reaching up to her neck where a thick iron ring rested on a chain, made for a hand much larger than hers. It had belonged to her father, and he had given it to her mother before the Battle of Azanulbizar which claimed his life. Caladwen could not bear to keep it so she had entrusted it to her daughter.

Arwen smiled again as her eyes drifted downwards to the bow and the arrows that lay scattered on the earth.

"Did you wish to learn the art of the bow?" she inquired of the child and Raina floundered for an answer.

"Yes," she admitted finally, albeit a bit reluctantly. "It's not very…Dwarf-like, and Mother wouldn't approve of me learning it…but I like learning."

"Oh?" Arwen arched a curious eyebrow. "What kind of learning?"

"I-I like weapons," Raina explained, "how they feel, how they're shaped, the differences between those made by Men, Elves, and Dwarves…I like how the languages between the races are unique, I like how each thrives in a different kind of land, even the Hobbits are very particular with their sprawling fields…"

A light glowed in Arwen's eyes. "It seems that you wish to be a scholar," she mused, "one who has knowledge of many matters."

"That doesn't sound very exciting," Raina said, her tone a bit mutinous.

"Have you not ever heard of the Warrior-Scribes that many of the Dwarrow opt to become?" Arwen asked her.

Raina screwed her face up, her eyes just silver slivers as she thought hard. "I might have heard the term a few times," she conceded. "My brother Ori was considering being one…I think…"

Raina remembered the brother that was closest to her age, Ori, who she had hardly seen without a book when she and her mother lived in Ered Luin. It had been incredibly difficult to drag him away to play with her and Fili and Kili.

"I can't really imagine him using a weapon, though," Raina said, "he's too…kind, the most I could imagine him using would be a slingshot."

Arwen's lips twitched slightly. "Is that so?"

"Unfortunately," Raina muttered, "he's not really violent, which is ironic considering his name means 'violent'."

"Indeed," Arwen mused, bending down even as Raina made to intercept her, procuring the slim bow from the grass, her thin fingers roving over its surface. It had been a long time since she had held a bow in her hands. She now elected to the use of her father's old blade, Hadhafang, but her first skill in weaponry was that of archery. "Would you like to learn?"

Raina's eyes widened and she couldn't stop a smile from blooming on her lips. Arwen wasn't surprised to discover that her whole face brightened in its presence. Suddenly Raina's resemblance to Caladwen was obvious.

"You would teach me?" she asked, positively gleeful.

The bow that Arwen held in her hands was smaller than the armory typically held, in fact, the bows that were kept there were all the same size. Arwen's eyes narrowed suspiciously and briefly before she smiled. Ah, her father had keen eyes and had no doubt seen that Raina had been desiring to learn the art of the bow and made it easier for her by leaving a bow crafted for a child of her size in the armory.

"I would be most honored to do so," Arwen replied and Raina, if it were possible, beamed even more brightly than before.

And so, Raina took up the bow that Arwen held out to her with an expression of awe that was so rarely seen. Arwen surveyed the child calmly, memorizing the light and eager happiness that her pale eyes held before she held up one of the arrows.

"Come," Arwen said, drawing the silver eyes to her, "let me show you how to wield a bow and arrow with precision."

And Raina was only too happy to learn, though, it must be said, her first fired arrows completely missed her target, and it was only by midday that she managed to fire an arrow that didn't lodge in the grass a bit away, but even that arrow still missed the trunk entirely, the arrow embedding in one of the branches.

Still, it was a promising start, or so Arwen assured her.

* * *

Raina gained an interest in sketching soon after she decided to become a Warrior-Scholar (Warrior-Scribe only dealt in the recording of current events and Raina wanted to deal in a wide assortment of topic, past and present, whether they mattered or not), and she found she was much better at sketching than she was at her bow.

This was a rather depressing thought, in Raina's opinion.

" _You need not worry so much,"_  Lindir commented one day as he assisted her with her Sindarin.  _"Being part Elf does not guarantee that you will immediately have skill with the bow. Even those who are skilled now did not start out that way."_

Raina struggled to keep up with his Sindarin words, but she managed it in the end, though she replied in Westron, the tongue that was far easier to follow. "Lindir…do you ever think that the reason I'm not as good at this is because I'm only half-Elf?"

Lindir's eyes were a bright blue and wise beyond that which his youth portrayed, a contrast with Raina's pale and young ones, which he met steadily.

"I do not believe that," he replied as Raina sketched out her father's ring against the parchment for practice, shading in the Khuzdul runes with a careful hand. "If you work hard, you will be rewarded."

A smile touched her lips briefly and she glanced at her feet where the bow and quiver of arrows lay, the tips already dulled from the many times that Raina had pierced them into bark.

"Do you think I'll ever be able to return to Ered Luin?" Raina inquired instead, pausing her charcoal stick to accept the cup of water that Lindir held out to her.

"I believe you will, one day…but not if you don't eat your greens." He gave her a rather significant look and laughter erupted from Raina's lips before she could stifle it.

"There is nothing wrong with greens, only cabbage!" Raina countered through her laughter and Lindir smiled.

"If that is the tale you wish to tell," Lindir conceded the matter and both fell silent at the sound of approaching footfalls and Lindir stood so that he might bow when the Lord Elrond came into view.

 _"My Lord Elrond,_ " he said, the Sindarin rolling off his tongue as his Westron changed smoothly to it.

Lord Elrond inclined his head slightly to the Elf-lord before him. "Lindir," he said simply, his ancient voice as beautiful as his daughter's.

Arwen had clearly inherited her coloring from him, as the Lord of Imladris too had dark locks and grey eyes that were the closest to Raina's silver eyes that she had seen yet, though they were still dark enough to compare with Arwen's.

He was as ageless as Arwen was and Raina had no doubt he would continue to look such ever when her hair silvered and her skin became cobwebbed with wrinkles.

Once Raina realized she was gaping at him, she shut her mouth quickly, heat blossoming on her cheeks. The only indication that he had taken note of this action was the barest twitch of the corner of his lips.

"Raina, daughter of Ibûn and Caladwen," he said, his eyes meeting hers, and Raina swallowed thickly.

"Y-Yes?" she stuttered out.

"Walk with me," he invited, though it sounded very much like it was barely an invitation, walking the fine line between invitation and command. "There is much I must discuss with you."

Raina glanced towards Lindir who nodded before she stood, brushing her trousers as she stood, leaving behind her cup of water, parchment and charcoal stick, and her bow and arrows to follow after him.

They walked in silence for a spell and Raina felt it best that she not break it so she waited a bit impatiently for him to speak.

"The matter I wish to speak with you concerns your mother," Lord Elrond said finally coming to a stop so suddenly that Raina nearly ran into him.

"My-my mother?" Raina said blankly, gazing up at him with uncomprehending eyes. She had forgiven her mother for taking her from Ered Luin months ago and she had enjoyed the renewed relationship with her mother that had been put on hold when the rift between them grew upon Caladwen's forcing her from the place of her birth. "Is there something wrong with her?"

"There is," Lord Elrond said in a solemn manner that had Raina's heart racing uncomfortably in her chest. It was true that her mother had not been herself as of late. She was more withdrawn and tired than usual. "Caladwen is…wasting away."

 _"What?"_  Raina squeaked.

"Her relationship with your father Ibûn, not matter how controversial, was true, and his death has wounded her greatly," Lord Elrond tried to explain.

"B-But my father died four years ago!" Raina insisted, her eyes wide and still so full of innocence. "How can that be?"

The gentle weight of his hand on her shoulder made her look up and he knelt to her level, an action that surprised her.

"It may take centuries before Caladwen's spirit diminishes entirely, and she would not wish upon you to see her in such a way…she wishes to sail instead to Valinor from the Grey Havens—"

 _"No!"_  Raina gasped, tears springing her eyes as she stepped away from him before turning and running, searching for her mother.


	3. Path to Mithlond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To some that may not know: Mithlond is the translation of Grey Havens in Sindarin. The Grey Havens is the common name, which is why Elrond called it such in the last chapter, for Raina's benefit.

"How is she?" Caladwen asked, leaning against the side of a balcony that overlooked Imladris, her eyes fixed into the distance where she could see her daughter with ease.

"Afraid and determined," came the reply. Lord Elrond stepped out into the open to join her. His grey eyes swept over her. "She is not pleased with you," he told her.

A slight chuckle escaped Caladwen at the words of Gil-galad's herald. She did not doubt them in the slightest. Raina had inherited her father's Dwarrow heart, loving so deeply and wounded so greatly by the loss of others.

Her anger towards her mother would be great, Caladwen could see that very clearly, as soon as she could find her, though that might take a short while.

"I do not blame her," Caladwen said softly, her eyes still fastened in the distance where she could wee her daughter's head of molten gold as she ran through Imladris in search of her.

It seemed like Raina had just started trusting her again when Caladwen had gone and broken her heart yet again. But this time, she would be leaving Raina alone without any guidance, it would be very different when she took her from Ered Luin.

She would be alone.

"I fear for her," Caladwen admitted to Lord Elrond, turning away from the Elven dwelling to fix the Lord of Imladris with a stare that he could not break. "She is so alone in this word, a unique oddity, and that shall surely weigh against her."

"She is not as alone as you might think," Lord Elrond promised. "Idhrenniel still lives."

"Idhrenniel lives in Lórien," Caladwen said with a sigh, "and I would not allow my daughter to journey to the forest with so little training."

Though, she had to concede that she only had herself to blame for that. She had tried to keep Raina so far away from weapons that it had resulted only in her wanting to learn to use them more.

Lord Elrond said nothing to this pronouncement. Truthfully, he was certain that once Idhrenniel heard of a fellow Dwelf that resided in one of the Elven dwellings that she would come running to meet her kin. Idhrenniel had been the only one of her kind of so long that he was certain she would be more than pleased to have words with Raina Ibûniel.

"Your daughter will not be alone," Lord Elrond promised, inclining his head slightly to the equally fair Elf. "She will be well looked after, I promise you."

"My Lord is ever gracious," Caladwen said, bowing her head deeply. "I know I may be asking too much, but…would you care for her?"

It wasn't all together strange for Lord Elrond to foster children that were not completely Elf, as he had done so for the descendents of Elros who were of the line of Isildur for more than an age.

Caladwen already knew that though small and young, Raina had garnered the attention of the lord, for how else could Raina have stolen a bow and a quiver of arrows that were the proper size for someone of her stature and arm length? Caladwen thought it was because he had missed having a child to care for and she wasn't certain she was altogether wrong in her assumption.

"I will, if that is your wish," Lord Elrond said. "But you must understand, I cannot keep her here as you have hoped to."

"I understand," Caladwen said sadly, "she is a child of wood and stone, I should not have expected her to choose one in favor of the other." Her eyes softened briefly. "I don't think she ever stops thinking about her brothers," she admitted, "or the two sons of Durin that she befriended…her anger towards me for taking her away from them blinded her for so long, and only know has she finally begun to see." Blue eyes met grey. "She will become a great Warrior-Scholar, of that I am certain," she told him, "so I beg of you, Lord Elrond, please do not follow my example."

And then she swept away as gracefully as she had come, leaving Lord Elrond to his thoughts.

Whatever Caladwen claimed, she had raised her daughter as best as she knew how in the absence created by her lover's death. That Lord Elrond could not fault her for. She had wanted to protect the only thing in the world that she viewed as valued greater than even the Silmarils that were considered most beautiful.

And far more rarer than the Arkenstone that lay under gold in Erebor.

She was a wild-hearted child, rather unlike Arwen, in that aspect, who was bound to a certain sense of how one of her lineage should act. She reminded him a bit more of his sons, Elladan and Elrohir, who were always running off into the woods to slay 'orcs' as children.

But Raina was more studious than his sons, and her interest in history, among many things, was great. Her mother had been right when she had said that her daughter would become a great Warrior-Scholar one day.

But Caladwen was wrong if she thought that the loss of her mother wouldn't hit Raina hard, because he could already see that it would.

He had seen the tears that sprouted from her eyes when she had learned of her mother's condition and where she intended to go.

The fear in her eyes was one that he wouldn't be forgetting any time soon, for it was a fear he had not seen for some time.

* * *

"How can you do this?" Raina demanded once she finally found her mother after nearly an hour of searching for the Elf in question.

Caladwen was sitting rather calmly in a winding chair that seemed quite flimsy in Raina's opinion, giving off the feeling that it might snap if one was to add a bit more weight to it.

"You can't just leave!" she burst out, her anger clouding her sadness. "You're leaving me just like Papa did!"

The last image she had of her father swam before her eyes, his back garbed in armor.

Caladwen's eyes softened as she looked upon her only child. "Raina," she said softly, "come here."

Raina complied, though she still looked greatly angered, looking a great deal like Ibûn in doing so and that only made it more difficult.

"Raina," she said, her voice tired, "I am dying."

Raina flinched and refused to meet her eyes as her mother took her hands within her own.

"I want what's best for you," Caladwen said imploringly, "can you not see that?"

"But I want you to stay," Raina insisted, her silver eyes blazing as they met her mother's soft orbs. "Mother,  _please_! Please don't go! Please don't leave me alone!"

The tears which had so desperately clung to her eyelashes had finally fallen and at long last the wall inside Raina which had already begun to crack when she had been told by Lord Elrond an hour previously of her mother's decision to journey into the West at last broke and Raina dissolved into tears in a manner that she later felt unbefitting of her age.

"Please don't go," Raina sobbed into her shoulder as she flung her arms around her mother. " _Stay_."

"I  _want_  to stay for you," Caladwen murmured into her ear as she drew her child to her, rubbing soothing circles into her back as she did so, rocking her daughter back and forth as she had years ago whenever Raina had awoken from a terrible nightmare. "I  _truly_  do, more than anything, my heart, but I can remain here no longer and I do not want you to see what would become of me if I stayed."

Raina leaned back, sniffling as she rubbed at the tears still staining her cheeks, causing her fair skin to turn a blotchy raw red from frequent rubbing.

Caladwen cupped her face in her hands and smiled at her. Raina's golden hair was wild and in a mess, no doubt from her running through Imladris in search of Caladwen, her thick hair falling from its braid. Her silver eyes were darker than she ever remembered them being, though this might have had something to do with the anger and sadness that her daughter was currently feeling.

"Do you know what the rarest and most beautiful gem in the earth is?" Caladwen asked her, her lips twisting as she remembered that Ibûn was the one who had asked her this question and in turn drilled the response to it as well.

"The Arkenstone," Raina intoned, remembering the question all-too-well.

"One day you will be someone's Arkenstone," Caladwen told her, fixing her daughter's braid in a flurry of fingers, tightening the leather strap at the end of her plait. "They will cherish you above everything else in the world."

Raina drew a face at that. She was still at the age where romantic love was one of the most undesirable things one could experience in a lifetime.

"Were you Papa's Arkenstone?" Raina asked her.

Caladwen's smile became a bit morose. "I don't know," she said honestly, "but I do know that he was mine."

Raina frowned slightly at these words. Dori, Nori, and Ori had all different mothers, but this knowledge had never seemed to bother them, so it didn't bother her. Of course, Dori was always getting on at Nori and mothering Ori and Raina so much that one would think they were all full siblings like Thorin and Dis were (and that was obvious in the color of their features, the way they walked, and the way they talked).

She wasn't sure that her father had ever had a One, as they said in the Dwarrow culture, she was certain beyond a doubt that her father loved Dori, Nori, Ori and her mothers in different ways, but that was still love. The Ri Brothers had all lost their mothers to childbirth which wasn't as uncommon as it seemed when one took into account the conditions they had been in before childbirth, so that her mother had lived birthing her was practically an oddity. This, despite what some thought, did not mean that her father loved her mother more.

"I've asked Lord Elrond to care for you," Caladwen said, bringing her daughter's attention back to the present once more. "You will be a good girl for him, won't you?"

Raina scowled sullenly at the ground, as though it could give her a proper response, which it could not.

"Raina," Caladwen sighed, lifting her chin with a finger so that her eyes were forced to look upon her mother once more. "Please? A last request from your mother?"

" _Fine_ ," Raina said grouchily, still not pleased about the thing as a whole. She supposed Lord Elrond wasn't too bad considering who she could have had to take care of her, though the Elves were kind and mild-mannered, so this came as no surprise. She'd hardly met Lord Elrond, though, and hadn't met his sons, but his daughter was kind enough, so that had to count for something.

"Good," Caladwen sighed again as if a great tension had been eased from her shoulders. "And when Lord Elrond permits you…you will be allowed to return to Ered Luin."

Raina's head which had been shifting downwards once more snapped back up at her words and she stared at her mother in shock as though she could not believe what she was hearing.

She wouldn't have believed her mother wanted her to ever to return to Ered Luin.

But she did not speak her thoughts as Caladwen feathered a kiss to her forehead.

* * *

"You will not be journeying to Mithlond with your mother alone," Arwen informed her two days later when Raina was venting her feelings by firing arrow after arrow at her target, though only some of them collided with the bark.

Her words caused Raina to miss her target completely as she whirled around to stare at Arwen, incredulity and annoyance warring on her face.

"Why not?" she demanded sounding irritatingly like a petulant child that had not gotten their way.

Arwen arched an elegant eyebrow at the Dwelf. "Though the path to Mithlond is the safest road we know of, the chances of orcs attacking you is high considering their leanings towards violence…So Father has conceded to allow me to accompany you."

Raina blinked and stared at the Elf standing before her. Honestly speaking, Raina had never actually seen the Elven lady in combat. Her skill with the bow was impressive, especially when one compared it to Raina's abilities with the weapon, which were lower than mediocre at best, and at worst…it was best not to think about that.

However, if her father was willing enough to allow his only daughter to accompany them to the port that lay at the Gulf of Lhûn, then she must have had great skill.

"Oh," Raina said a bit numbly, glancing down at the bow she was holding in her hands, a bit disappointed that she wouldn't be the only one that would be accompanying her mother on her final journey.

She felt it was intensely personal for her mother to ask her to come with her to bid her farewell at the shoreline of the River Lhûn. Of course, she hadn't wanted to when her mother had first asked her, though this might've had something more to do with the fact that it made it seem more real.

Raina didn't want to think of her mother sailing away into Valinor without her, but it wasn't as though Raina actually wanted to go with her. Her place was in Arda, not Aman, where Valinor resided. Raina had a long life ahead of her before she would even consider taking a boat from the Grey Havens.

"Well, I suppose that's not too terribly bad," Raina grumbled to herself, making Arwen utter a musical laugh. This in turn caused Raina's cheeks to flood with heat, having forgotten just how attune Elf hearing was. Her own hearing was far greater than that of a Dwarf or Man, much like her sight, but she also wasn't very good at holding her tongue, something that earned her reproach from her mother.

"Not terribly bad?" Arwen repeated with a smile.

"We could have gotten someone we didn't know," Raina said reasonably with a shrug as she moved to collect her fallen arrow that lay far behind the tree she had been aiming at (yet another reason to practice more, because it was starting to get embarrassing, quite frankly). "Who knows what they would have been like?"

Arwen said nothing to these words as Raina returned to her side once more to ready her bow, only this time she was humming a soft song.

" _The King beneath the mountains,_

_The King of carven stone,_

_The lord of silver fountains_

_Shall come into his own!_

_His crown shall be upholden,_

_His harp shall be restrung,_

_His halls shall echo golden_

_To songs of yore re-sung._

_The woods shall wave on mountains_

_And grass beneath the sun;_

_His wealth shall flow in fountains_

_And the rivers golden run._

_The streams shall run in gladness,_

_The lakes shall shine and burn,_

_And sorrow fail and sadness_

_At the Mountain-king's return!"_

Arwen had been so intently focused on the words that she had sung under her breath that she missed Raina firing off two shots, lodging a bit off center from where she had been aiming, but it was at least very much better than it had been before.

She wasn't entirely sure that Raina understood the meaning behind the words of the song, it seemed more likely that she was simply repeating what she had heard before.

"Did your father sing that to you?" Arwen enquired of her after a moment, causing Raina to relax her stance so that she wouldn't fire off another badly-aimed arrow due to Arwen's words.

"Yes, whenever I had a nightmare," Raina admitted, embarrassment blossoming on her face as she said this. "He had a lovely voice for singing…I mean, for a Dwarf!" Raina coughed uncomfortably and Arwen hid her chuckles.

"Elves are not the only ones with an affinity towards singing," she told her, trying to vainly keep the laughter out of her voice, but it didn't work that well.

Raina shrugged, a somber expression overtaking her features. "Mother doesn't like it when I sing it," she added, her grip on her bow tightening. "I think it reminds her of Papa too much."

Arwen's expression softened. "My father does not speak of my mother," she told the child and the Dwelf looked up. "She was taken by orcs and greatly wounded when my brothers brought her back to Imladris. My father healed her, but…she did not wish to remain in Arda, so she chose to go on to Valinor, as your mother will soon do."

Raina's eyes clouded over and Arwen could see that she was thinking intently about something, but she did not voice her thoughts, as Arwen had not expected her to. Raina had to come to her own decisions at some point, so why not now?

"Raina!" a voice called and Raina froze at the sound of Lindir's annoyed voice.

"Oops," Raina muttered, "I forgot I've got lessons with Lindir."

"Another time," Arwen promised to the girl who would one day soon fall into the care of her father. "Lindir does not take well to those who are late to their lessons."

Raina ran off with her bow and arrows, laughter issuing from her mouth, but it would be a stretch of time before that laughter was heard again.

* * *

The closer they became to Mithlond, the more Raina's heart strained against her chest. And the more she wished she hadn't been so angry with her mother after they had left Ered Luin. Raina frowned to herself, her hands tightening over the reins of her pony (trying not to be irritated that because she was so short currently –though that wasn't likely to change anytime soon– that she had to ride a pony at a much shorter height than Arwen and her mother's horses which set them above her).

Raina sighed slowly and carefully so as not to attract the attention of her mother or Arwen. And then she looked up to scowl at the approaching Gulf of Lhûn; it seemed as though it was nearly upon them and that in doing so, it was trying to spite her.

In retrospect, this was a rather foolish notion, but that wouldn't dawn on her until a later date.

"We are here," Arwen intoned at what seemed like an age later (but couldn't have been, Raina reminded herself, as she doubted a Dwelf could live for so long), and at long last, Raina dismounted to gaze upon the Grey Havens.

It wasn't what she expected, that much she had to admit. She had been anticipating dark, murky waters spilling out into the sea with a feeling of gloominess being evident, but it wasn't like that at all.

The sun was setting and casting a soft arrange glow upon the water which was clear and blue, the boat that her mother would take to Valinor swaying with the gentle tides that came in and out slowly.

Raina dismounted silently after her mother and Arwen had also done so, her heart clogging her throat and stalling the speech that she wasn't sure she wanted to use to begin with.

She barely felt when her mother laced her fingers with Raina's as they walked towards the boat together as Arwen stood at a respectful distance to allow mother and daughter a moment of privacy, or as much privacy as could be achieved in the wilderness.

And then Caladwen knelt down so that she could meet Raina's eyes.

"So," Caladwen said, her voice throaty with emotions that Raina was certain reflected her own, "this is where we part, dearest daughter." Her eyes traced over Raina's features, as if committing her face to memory.

Raina's lower lip trembled and she fought not to bite it as she often reflexively did. "Y-You won't forget me?" Raina whispered, her greatest fear only being revealed at the last possible moment.

" _Never_ ," Caladwen swore, threading her thin fingers into Raina's thick locks as she pressed a loving kiss to her forehead before leaning back to smile wetly at her. "You, my heart, are _unforgettable_."

And with that said, Caladwen's hands raised to simple silver circlet that rested against her forehead –a contrast to the intricate one that Lord Elrond and his children wore– to lift it and free her head of its burden. Raina's own head was not yet fully grown, but she tilted it to the back as tiaras sometimes were, making do.

"One day this will fit you," she said kindly, "and one day you will understand that I only wanted the best for you."

Raina closed her eyes briefly causing the tears in her eyes to trail tracks down her cheeks before she opened them once more, tears springing from her pale orbs once more.

"I know now," she hardly dared to breathe, launching herself forward so that she could embrace her mother one last time. "And you are the greatest mother in the world."

Caladwen could not stop her own tears from falling at this pronouncement, but when she leaned back, they had been wiped clean.

" _Sweet water and light laughter till next we meet,"_ Raina choked out the Sindarin farewell and Caladwen allowed herself a short laugh as she climbed into the boat.

"You will be a great Warrior-Scholar when we meet again, Raina Ibûndottir," she said with so much certainty that Raina had to believe her as she watched her paddle out into the beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raina being cared for by Elrond wasn't planned, but I did know what kind of relationship I want Aragorn/Estel to have with Raina, so I figured she would have to be close to Elrond in order to be close to Aragorn, that's basically the only reason.
> 
> Raina will undoubtedly be meeting Elladan and Elrohir next chapter, so that'll be interesting to write, at the least.


	4. Family of Peredhil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I neglected this fanfic a bit –not a surprise, I neglect a lot of them– but since someone asked for an update I thought I might give it a try, since A Different Kind of Gold's first birthday is coming up and I'm obsessed with Hobbit again.
> 
> I'm so sorry I haven't put more effort into this fic, but life gets away from you, and my inspiration for this fic died a bit after I'd reposted it. You might only get this update for awhile, but better than nothing, right?
> 
> I have also decided, with great deliberation, that this fic is turning out to be FilixOC as opposed to KilixOC, which is just fine because I feel like Kili gets more love than Fili, but, either way, the Durins won't be showing up for a good while.

Raina lost count of just how many times her eyes strayed to gaze at the ceiling of her room that was much larger than the one she had had in her home with her mother. She had been living under the roof (so to speak) of Lord Elrond Peredhil for the past two weeks, and she had yet to speak even two words to the elf.

Perhaps it could have been considered a sort of mourning period, but Raina felt neither the need to move at all or do anything other than stare at the ceiling.

Watching them bring back her father dead had been painful enough, but now with her mother gone too…Raina felt truly alone in the world, something she hadn't considered to be possible, it wasn't as though there were other dwelves around with whom she could share her struggles with.

She was, as Caladwen had once said, a unique oddity.

But it didn't do to dwell on things that had already passed. Her time was better served looking to the future, that was something Lindir had told her countless times before when she had thought back to what would have happened if she had stayed in Ered Luin. But it mattered not; what mattered was Raina was in Imladris.

The golden-haired dwelf sat up in the bed, a sudden movement that made her head spin a little, before pulling herself upright and grasping the spare tunic and trousers that had been lain across a nearby chair and pulling them on. The material was more durable than elves were known to wear, but it was what Raina preferred.

Her image reflected in the mounted mirror, but Raina ignored it in favor of grabbing her quiver full of arrows and bow, opening the door and shutting it swiftly behind her as she peered down the hallway with speculation.

Imladris didn't really have a palace given how it didn't have a king (Lord Elrond was once Gil-galad's herald, and while he did bear the great king's ring, Vilya, he was a mere lord, no matter how reverently he was spoken of), but the central structure was possibly as close to a palace as the elves of Imladris could manage. Raina liked it, even if it was not as structurally sound as her home had been in Ered Luin, and even if she sometimes got a bit lost, and that did seem to happen a bit more than not.

It took only a short while this time for Raina to come out into the bright sunlight, and even less to return to her primary archery practicing area by the waterfall.

The target she had set up before her mother had crossed to Valinor was where she had left it, and Raina found herself simply staring at it with a rather vacant expression that she found herself violently startled when a voice uttered behind her: "Well, it won't bite you."

Raina whipped around, her braid smacking her in the side of her face as she did so to see the one that had spoken.

Actually, there were two.

Raina mentally cursed herself for allowing them to slip behind her unnoticed (confound her elven hearing for failing her!).

They were nearly identical with the same dark hair and pale eyes that made Raina certain that they were kin to Elrond and his daughter Arwen…which made them the twin sons of the Lord of Imladris, Elladan and Elrohir.

She looked them up and down in surprise. Elves, she knew, favored lighter colors for clothing, anything from hues of the sunlight and moonlight to the color of the leaves during spring; she supposed the latter made it easy to hide in the trees during orc ambushes.

Her eyebrows furrowed and they gave her identical grins.

"You're Raina Ibûniel, yes?" the one on the left surmised.

"Yes," Raina said slowly, wondering where he'd heard her name, though it was likely from either his sister or his father.

"I am Elrohir," he said before second one made a small step forward to finish with: "And I am Elladan."

"It looks like we're your new brothers," Elladan informed her with a sly smile.

Raina released a small huff of breath. "I already have three older brothers."

Three brothers she hadn't seen since she was seven summers of age, three brothers her mother had to forcibly separate her from, three brothers she missed dearly.

Elrohir hardly blinked. "And now it seems you have five, and a sister, of course."

But Raina only narrowed her eyes further, hiking her quiver higher on her back and tightening her grip on her bow. "Did you follow me?" she asked.

"No, would we do that?" Elladan spoke with an air of innocence that Raina didn't come close to believing as he swung his head to his brother.

"Of course not," Elrohir responded smoothly, each still grinning at her.

Their cheeky nature reminded her a bit of Nori, and that thought made her heart ache just a little as she rolled her eyes, turning away from them to draw an arrow and notch it with her drawstring.

"Hm, I see why Arwen took her under her wing," Elladan mused thoughtfully to his brother, clearly aware that Raina could hear his words with ease.

Elrohir hummed in agreement. "Bad form," he agreed.

A flush of heat rose in Raina's cheeks and she released the arrow prematurely, missing the target entirely and whirling around to glare at the duo.

But it was hard to glare when they were laughing at her.

They weren't elves, they were imps, that much Raina was sure.

* * *

By the time lunch came around, Raina had warmed up to them considerably, but the twins had a certain way of easing their way around tense atmospheres.

"How old are you now?" Elrohir asked her as she chewed on an apple.

"Twelve," Raina said swallowing thickly. "Why?"

They both considered her and Raina felt as though their gazes were penetrating her skin. Raina could guess why. Being borne of two races made growing a bit complicated, and sometimes it seemed as though she grew faster physically than she did mentally.

"Dwarrow-folk reach majority at forty years," Elladan spoke thoughtfully, "but elves do not until fifty."

Raina wrinkled her nose in distaste. "So I have to wait more than thirty years to be considered of age?"

"Not necessarily," Elladan said with a twinkle in his eye. "Idhrenniel always claimed to come of age at twenty years."

Though, Idhrenniel had wanted nothing more than to travel the world, which she had done as soon as her twentieth year came along, leaving Lòrien before anyone could stop her. But, the twins had to concede, they'd seen her during her twenty-fifth year and she had hardly changed since then.

"Idhrenniel?" Raina sounded out the name carefully. It meant 'wise' in Sindarin, just as Raina's meant 'gracious'; Raina still didn't know what possessed her mother to give her a name that was ill-suited for her. Then her eyes widened, gaining an eager light the likes of which had not been seen before. "There's another one? Another dwelf? What're they like? Where do they live? What's—"

Elrohir held up one hand to stem the flow of her words and Raina snapped her jaw shut quickly to hear him speak.

"Relations between elves and dwarrow-folk are quite rare," he said, choosing his words carefully. "You are only the second that has ever been documented, but Idhrenniel is alive and well. She dwells in Lòrien with our woodland kin. She is an adventurous sort, but she has only traveled between the kingdoms of the Eldar…she has always been a bit more elf than dwarf."

Raina frowned at that. She was every bit an elf as she was a dwarf, but she would have felt impossibly torn if asked to choose between the two races she had been borne from. There were things she liked about being a dwarf, and things she liked about being an elf, but she hadn't liked it much when her mother had forced her to choose her elven heritage over her dwarrow, to choose her mother over her brothers.

"Do you think she'll come to see me?" Raina asked them, her voice a bit small.

"I'm certain she will," Elladan told her with a smile that made his eyes twinkle like stars. "Idhrenniel has always been the only one of her kind; I'm sure she'd very much look forward to meeting another."

Raina couldn't help but smile brightly at that. To meet someone else who understood what it was like to live as someone who was caught between two races that couldn't have been more different from each other.

She chewed on her apple thoughtfully before another question probed her mind, prompting her into speech once more.

"You go off with the Dúnedain Rangers, don't you?" she asked, pale eyes flitting between the pair. "What's that like? What d'you do?"

"You are a very curious child," Elrohir remarked with an amused note in his voice and Raina couldn't help but flush.

"I'm going to be a Warrior-Scholar," she said with a bit of pride. "My brother Ori's going to be a Warrior-Scribe."

"What about your other brothers?"

Raina smiled fondly, remembering the last time she'd seen her brothers all together; Dori had been berating Nori who had ignored him in favor of sorting out Ori's braids, whilst the youngest of the Ri brothers ignored the chaos around him to show Raina something in his book.

"Dori's got a gift with making clothes," Raina said, screwing up her face, trying to recall the details from her early years in Ered Luin.

" _Go back to your knitting!" Nori raged and Dori gave an incomprehensible shout._

"He's really good at knitting," she added. He'd made her a nice hat once, a color of beige, several shades darker than her golden hair, but Raina had grown out of it.

"And Nori's a thief," she finished with a small giggle. "He says he's just liberating unworthy people of property they don't deserve, though."

" _Raina, c'mere."_

_Nori knelt and held out the thick ring that had once been their father's, pressing a finger to his lips. "Don't tell Dori."_

"Quite an honorable profession, I'm sure," Elladan chortled.

Raina shrugged. "We're part of the Durin line, but we're pretty removed from the main line; we were pretty much left to fend for ourselves."

It had been difficult for her father, she remembered, having four mouths to feed. She wondered if that was the thing that drove him to march on Moria, after all, the families of war heroes were always given compensation. But Raina's family received less, possibly because of what she was, a half-elven child hated by many, though her brothers worked tirelessly to keep her from those dark thoughts.

"Rangers spend most of their time in the wild," Elrohir said finally, pulling Raina from her memories. "we secretly guard and protect Eriador from spies and invaders."

"Like orcs and goblins?" Raina asked in fascination.

They nodded as one.

"So you must travel a great deal," Raina pressed, ever eager to learn new things.

"A good bit, yes," Elladan agreed, quirking an eyebrow.

"Can females be Rangers?"

"Well, there aren't many," Elrohir had to concede, "but there are a few."

Raina hummed thoughtfully, her gaze shifting from their faces up to the sky as the puffy clouds moved lazily against the bright blue. She had remained in Imladris since she was seven, it was only right that she wished to see the world, and remaining with the Rangers of the North for a time would allow her that.

Sadly, it seemed she would have to wait another seven years before that could come to fruition.

* * *

Nori was throwing his things in the first bag he could find, eyebrows drawn down into a perpetual frown as he scowled. He really could only take so much of Dori, it seemed like every time his elder brother opened his mouth he was pressing on Nori's buttons.

The middle Ri brother could take a lot for Ori's sake, but there came a time when he just  _snapped._

It would have been different if Raina were there, that much he was certain of. Raina had always been a soothing presence, to ease the tensions between Dori and Nori and bring Ori a bit out of his shell.

But Raina wasn't there, Raina was gone, taken from them by her elven mother. Nori couldn't bring himself to really blame Caladwen, though. His father had loved her dearly and she him, that he had seen in every glance and every smile the pair had shared. Caladwen had been an elf, yes, but she had also been unfailingly kind, no matter their differences between their races, and above all, she had always done what was right for Raina.

And there had been nothing left to keep her or Raina in Ered Luin after their father's death, not even because Dori, Nori, and Ori were her brothers could the elf be convinced to stay.

"You're leaving, aren't you?"

Nori twisted around to look to his younger brother. Ori had a smear of charcoal across a cheek, the same charcoal, no doubt, that had blackened the tips of his fingers that clutched a book to his chest.

"Please don't go!" Ori begged, his brown eyes big as he pled. "It's not the same when you're not here…"

Nori's shoulders sagged. He had gone away once –robbed some bloke so blind that the dwarf still had no idea to this day what had happened to him– and he didn't like to leave Ori alone with Dori, mothering hen overprotective Dori. "I can't stay here, Ori…I am sorry."

He hoped that his brother could tell how sincere he was.

"Where're you going to go?" Ori asked in a small voice, ducking his head and rubbing at his eyes to keep his older brother from seeing the tears that welled there.

"Rivendell."

That had Ori jerking his head up to goggle at him. Even if he wasn't as literate as he was, he would have recognized the name of the elven settlement that Caladwen had originally been from, the place she had taken Raina to when she left.

"But you don't like elves!" he blurted.

Nori gave a careless shrug, packing some spare clothes in a flurry of fingers.

"What if she's not there?"

"She'll be there," Nori said with utmost certainty, so much certainty that Ori felt a little ashamed that he didn't have nearly so much faith.

"Wait here," Ori ordered suddenly, jabbing a finger at Nori, disappearing out of the room briefly only to return soon after laden with a different book and a pair of long knitted gloves a soft beige color, fingerless and knitted to reach past the elbow. Nori recognized Dori's work. "Can you give her these?"

He looked over the book, arching an eyebrow. "A book on basic Khuzdul…Thorin wouldn't approve."

Like his brothers, Nori was not as close to their clansman despite that they were remote kin, though the distance was partly to do with the fact that they were brothers to a half-elven mongrel.

"She's a dwarf too," Ori said without blinking an eyelid. "If she can learn Sindarin, she can learn Khuzdul."

Nori gave him a light chuckle before taking the gifts and shoving them into the bag and hiking the bag up onto his back. Then he grasped Ori's shoulders, brushing his brow against his younger brother's.

"I'll come back," he promised.

"Someday," the young dwarfling muttered, making him smile, because he wasn't wrong.

And giving Ori's shoulders one last squeeze, Nori took off into the unknown.

* * *

Raina was sure she looked extremely petulant, but she was beyond the point of caring as she stood beside Lord Elrond as Elrohir, Elladan, and Arwen all mounted horses to leave Imladris.

Arwen would be staying in Lòrien with her woodland kin, and from the sound of it, she might be there for years, decades even. Elrohir and Elladan, on the other hand, would be rejoining the Rangers.

And Raina was going to be alone again. The three siblings were among the few elves in Imladris that Raina talked to and spent time with. But they were leaving her and Raina felt cut off from the world again.

"Fear not, Raina," Arwen assured her father's ward as she stood beside her father, the dwelf's short stature blaringly obvious compared to his willowy height. "We shall see one another once again."

Raina scowled, her lower lip jutting outwards into a pout. "But that could be  _decades_ away!"

The twin elves chuckled on their horses as their sister smiled. "And by that time you will be an accomplished archer?"

Pink suffused across her cheeks as Raina uttered in affront: "Of course I will!"

"Farewell, little sister!" Elladan called and Raina threw a rude hand gesture towards him that she remembered Nori making when he got aggravated by Dori. Evidently, it was a gesture they recognized, given the peals of tinkling laughter that followed it.

Then the trio gave their father a farewell of their own before giving the ward one last wave and taking their horses up the path and disappearing from view.

Raina heaved a heavy sigh, hardly noticing the hand that fell lightly against her shoulder, missing the slight smile that had appeared on the Elven lord's lips.

"Seven years," she mumbled. "Seven years before I can leave."

"And where would you go?" Elrond asked her, curiosity hanging onto his question.

Raina's shoulders lifted and fell. "Maybe Ered Luin…maybe…I thought it might be fun to be a Ranger, Elladan and Elrohir seem to like it."

Indeed, they seemed rather eager to get back to it, no matter how hard they tried to hide it.

"So they do," Elrond agreed with a fond smile that Raina only noticed once she tilted her head back to look at him. "However, they had a good bit of trouble fighting in with the Rangers when they first began."

Raina blinked. "They did?"

He nodded. "Elves seldom ride with Men, it took effort on both parts for them to work together cohesively."

Silver eyes glittered and Raina dropped her hand to the dagger she had belted at her waist, the last gift from his children to her as a farewell. Most daggers that were elven-made were slender and small, but Raina had no use for a dagger like that, so hers was wide, like a blade that had been cut short.

"Don't tread too far, Raina," Elrond advised as she leapt down the steps to land on the circular clearing. "Orcs have been seen coming close to our borders."

"I won't," Raina promised with a grin before racing off into the trees.

She would give anything to go beyond Imladris' borders, but Elrond was right, there was an increase in orc presence lately, as evident by the increase in patrols that Raina had seen when she walked about (usually searching for a new target to practice her skill of the bow on).

Raina leapt over a twisted root before finding a tree with a few footholes to climb her way up into its branches. The good thing about being half-elf meant that she was very light on her feet, maybe not as much as the elves were, but certainly far more than her dwarrow kin.

Unfortunately, she had barely begun the climb when something dark and furry came out of nowhere and smacked her in the face so hard that Raina lost her grip on the branches with a sharp cry and fell back to the ground with a jarring thump.

Raina groaned. "Ow!" And then whatever it was sank its teeth into her hand and she sat up straight with a yelp of pain.  _"Ow!"_

It glared at her with distaste and Raina wasn't quite sure what to make of it other than what was already clear to her; it had dark fur, dark eyes, and pointed white teeth.

"What're you supposed to be?" she asked it and the thing –the creature, whatever it was– merely hissed at her like a cat that had its trail trodden on by a boot from someone who weighed a great deal.

It was looking at her like she was the one at fault, it wasn't like Raina had collided with whatever it was! She was minding her own business when it went and collided with her face.

"This is your fault!" Raina snapped, jabbing a finger towards it where it lay beside her (after biting painfully on her hand), not having moved from its spot, apparently still spitting mad at her. "I was minding my own business, you know!  _You_  hit  _me!"_

It flattened its ears and that's when Raina noticed the painful-looking twist of one of its legs.

"You're hurt," she realized. "Is that why you hit me?"

It gave no response, but Raina didn't know why she'd honestly expected it to.

Then Raina was faced with a decision: leave it there to die or take it to Lord Elrond and see if he could heal its injury.

The decision was a bit obvious to Raina.

"Come on," she said, "I'll take you to someone who'll fix your leg."

It hissed pitifully at her and bit at her hands, which was a bit annoying and painful but Raina surmised that it was probably worse for the creature than for her.

"Bite me all you like," Raina told it, "I'm still taking you to see someone."

It gave her a look that was almost petulant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it looks like Nori's going to show up at some time, so that's a bit exciting, wouldn't you say? Nori and Ori are two of my favorite of the Dwarves in the Hobbit, so, of course I had to have a little bit about them (Dori does not appreciate being sidelined, but ah well)
> 
> Idhrenniel is also an interesting character that I'm going to love to explore, she might show up in the next chapter, I'm not entirely sure.
> 
> Also, thanks for all the patience because I know it must've been annoying to wait almost a whole bloody year for an update so I'm sorry about that and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.
> 
> And if I don't manage another update (since I've got a long list of things I want updated), Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I am officially out of school for the year so its going to be a month of fanfic-writing for me!


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